12mo ago

Admin collaboration and liberal coup

kittenzrulz claims that the takeover of this community was entirely over links getting burned out. this post would appear to contradict that.

furthermore, they completely disregarded my points in the questions i asked, particularly around the ideological motive around the changes they made when giving feedback, and failed to respond when i pushed them on the point, despite posting elsewhere.

i would argue that both the mod of this community, and the admin of the instance, are hostile to anarchist and leftist politics, and cannot be trusted. recommend finding a new instance.

78 comments

Every single person I've interacted with trying to preach the wonders of soulism has been controlling and belligerent towards other leftists and trans people.
Starting with DRONERIGHTS/PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES and ending (hopefully) with Mindgoblin and Grail.
I engaged with grail in good faith at first over soulism but at this point I'm wholly convinced that the philosophy where one can simply decide that someone else isn't human probably isn't the best because every single person slinging it has left me with a horrible experience.
- I engaged with grail in good faith at first over soulism but at this point I'm wholly convinced that the philosophy where one can simply decide that someone else isn't human probably isn't the best because every single person slinging it has left me with a horrible experience.
  Doing a quick skim through claimed tenants, it does indeed appear that way. If I'm reading it correctly, the philosophy claims that objective reality is an unjust hierarchy... following that absurd line further, it means that everything is subjective and mutable at the whim of a given individual (is it anyone or just those who are more anti-realist than others?). So, social contract then also becomes mutable at an individual's whim, etc. Seems like it rhymes heavily with right-wing "post-truth communities".
  
  It's an "off compass" meme ideology.
  
  Soulists do not believe in social contract theory. The social contract was invented by Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, the "father of liberalism". Locke was a capitalist. Soulists are anarchists. We don't like liberals.
  When it comes to Soulists, you're more likely to find utilitarians among our ranks. We punch Nazis not because Nazis violate the social contract, but because Nazis threaten to bring genocide and war. While a social contract theorist would happily deal with a Nazi who was polite, well-mannered, and followed all the rules, a Soulist would not. A Soulist would pull out the baseball bat and tell the Nazi to get the fuck out, no matter how well the Nazi follows the social contract.
- I'm very glad link seems to be doing alright though if his tumblr is anything to go off of.
  Even if he never sees this, I wish him the very best.
- It's really funny to me how a group that claims to believe reality is entirely subjective and that people should have the freedom to shape it as they choose are really insistent that everyone follow their exact system of beliefs.
- Soulism doesn't endorse assigning a species identity to someone else. We are all assigned human at birth, and this is an act of abuse against those of us who are not humans. Assigning a different species identity to a human would be the same violence and the same abuse. Using dehumanisation as a justification for further violence is even worse. Soulists believe that forcing someone else into a reality, including the reality of a particular species identity, is violent and wrong. Everyone deserves the right to choose their own species, and if they choose human, nobody should be able to take that away from them.
I don't know the current mod of this community well enough to speak on that but I can most certainly tell you that Ada (the instance admin) is not actively trying to be hostile to anarchist and leftist politics.
The post you linked to by MindTraveller is an active misrepresentation of events.
Traveller and I are not "in agreement" about much of anything. Their politics are very far removed from mine
This is the text of the message I sent advising that I was shutting the group down.
After consideration, I’ve decided that non voters does not really fit the stated goals of blahaj zone. Your motives for creating it seem based on a personal vendetta, and whilst your views are genuine, nothing constructive comes from the community. All it does is create division, because its sole purpose is to target others, without really focusing on any progressive ideas or discussion of its own.
At the moment, it’s causing more harm than good to the overall community.
I’ll leave the community open, so that if you choose to set the community up on another instance, you will have the opportunity to direct them to the new location.
Given the post which you linked, (which I had not seen until now) I will be removing Traveller and the new community, because once more, the goal appears to be to create division
My goal of blahaj zone is not political. The goal is to allow trans people to have a space where they can exist on their own terms, without having to pretend to be someone they're not. My own political views are closer to Links/LibertyHub than nonvoters or its ilk. Yet as long as there is no bigotry or gatekeeping, then trans people with politics at odds with my own are welcome. It's why we have an "armed queers" community, despite my own strong distaste for gun culture.
Communities/posters that exist primary to create division, without adding anything positive back, have no place here.
- well thank you for clarifying and doing this much, i guess. but frankly this hasn’t been a safe place, none of this situation has been okay and i’m extremely not comfortable with grail’s behaviour as well. i’ve moved to hexbear despite my political differences with them and they’re honestly creating a far safer and more welcoming space for me as an anarchist and trans person. like seriously sort this place out if you want it to be safe for trans people. it currently is not.
  
  like seriously sort this place out if you want it to be safe for trans people. it currently is not.
  Hexbear is only safe for trans folks whose politics don't clash too strongly with theirs. They have a whole community dedicated to dunking on folk who disagree with them, and that includes trans folk. If you step too far from what they deem acceptable, harassing and dogpiling is seen as an acceptable response.
  Many of the trans folks on blahaj zone, despite being left aligned, would be deemed to be "libs" by Hexbear, and actively harassed until they left.
  If you think that it's ok that the majority of folk on this instance (well, the majority of trans folk anywhere to be honest) are valid targets for harassment, I don't know what to tell you other than we have very different ideas of what trans safety looks like.
- You're the best Ada thanks for everything!
- Thank you for allowing armedqweers to exist here Ada.
- When I hear "My goal of blahaj zone is not political," I hear "I want my group to have no immune system so that fascism can insidiously sneak in past our noses."
  
  If I said "politics has no place on blahaj zone" that would be a fair accusation.
  But politics explicitly has a place on blahaj zone, precisely because of the impact it has on the lives our community. It needs to be talked about. Politics has a place here, because it has to have a place here. But it's not the primary reason the space exists.
- Mindtraveller was nothing but supportive of Me the other day when I was being misgendered and grilled on My pronouns by other users. The only other people who were acting like trans allies were yourself and the two mods of this community. And I'm very grateful to you for removing the comments and kittenzrulz for allowing Me to return to this community. But Mindtraveller did something different, which was being deeply vocal about trans inclusivity, and I needed to hear that. It helped Me deal with the anxiety I get when I'm exposed to that sort of thing. Who's going to yell at transphobes and run c/soulism if they're gone?
  Also it looks from this thread like the mods of this community are allowing Mindtraveller to be a member, since they have a comment in this thread. They say they're cooperating with the mods of Liberty Hub and there's not going to be any more infighting. Where's the division?
  
  Also it looks from this thread like the mods of this community are allowing Mindtraveller to be a member, since they have a comment in this thread. They say they’re cooperating with the mods of Liberty Hub and there’s not going to be any more infighting. Where’s the division?
  The mod(singular since the soulists chased the others out) is probably inactive and may also have been chased out because of the aftermath.
  The division is how midtraveler is constantly starting arguments with people who don't share their views. If hexbear gets defederated for this behavior, why did midtraveler get an admin endorsement when it only caused more division?
It is not my experience that the admins are hostile to anarchist, Ada has been supportive of my efforts related to the !anarchism@lemmy.blahaj.zone community I started.
- i hope that continues to be the case. but i have absolutely no faith in this instance anymore i'm afraid.
  
  Yea honestly I've never seen Ada handle any situation in a way that I find distasteful. From what I can tell they definitely lean anarchist and have explicitly stated that they support anarchist communities on this instance.
  This isn't an anarchist instance though. They aren't going to ban people or whatever for having opinions they don't agree with.
  I think the situation with MindTraveller could have been handled better, but there's no easy way to decide when and how to censor people like that.
- Thanks for linking another anarchist comm for me to subscribe to <3
Might have a new queer leftist community soon, presumably on db0. I've just gotten back from a trip but I've been in touch with someone interested in it, I'll drop a post if there's any news.
I'd also echo some of the other sentiments, I don't think the instance mods are problematic especially Ada who has been supportive as far as I've seen, but kittenzrulz clearly should never have been given control over the community.
- My plan was never to control this community, LOC leaving and the other mod being inactive forced my hand. However, as every day passes it becomes clearer to me that I need to choose a new head mod.
  
  I believe you and I don't have an issue with you personally, but given the way you handled becoming head mod (ignoring suggestions, feedback and pleas to not change things so suddenly with no explanation) I can't see this community surviving without addressing things, which I believe you are fully capable of.
  I don't think you necessarily need to step down as head mod, that's up to you, however I think the next steps should be community driven. It would be a big move that would inspire a lot of confidence if you address transparency issues (explain how decisions will be made and commit to explaining them fully beforehand, for example) and allow mods to be chosen by the community, though given the nature of Lemmy I'm not sure that there is a good way to do this. I see Grail has put Their hand up to be a moderator in that thread, if you're considering accepting I think you necessarily need to engage the community first. It will look like someone bullied LOC.wav off of lemmy and took over their space, and personally from having read a few of Their medium articles I won't be at all comfortable in this space with them on the mod team, but again should be a community decision imho.
  Also I'll just add that if you're feeling overwhelmed and need help or just someone to chat to in general, please reach out I'm happy to help if I can.
...huh? Im srry but this post just makes no sense at all?
in the first paragraph u say that the linked post contradicts that LOC left for being burnt out but that post doesn't mention anything relevant to that
and on the last paragraph you say the mods of this community and the admins of this instance r hostile to anarchism and leftist politics which... is the opposite of what has always been the case?
Thank you for directing people to the post advertising !soulism@lemmy.blahaj.zone! c/soulism is going to be an explicitly far-leftist place. We won't tolerate any form of political apathy or centrism, or capitalist apologia, both of which include liberalism, so I'm sure it will be a great place for any regulars here to check out. We hope to cooperate with the leadership of Liberty Hub and end all the fighting that's been going on for the past several weeks. Hopefully, this is the end of leftist infighting on Blahaj.
- The end of leftist infighting would come if you simply stopped posting I think
  
  If only stopping that was their goal
- Awesome.

78 comments